Description

The 2015 iCAP, chapter 4, objective 5, is "Implement the Campus Bike Plan on the schedule noted in that plan. Notable deadlines include full implementation of new bikeway facilities by FY25, bike parking within 150 feet of every building in the core of campus by FY20, and bike rentals by FY20." The campus is home to an estimated 10,000 cyclists, including students, staff, and faculty. In order to increase ridership and the safety of all roadway users, the University recognizes that it must take a number of steps to improve both the culture and infrastructure around cycling on campus. For example:

The Campus Bike Center provides a central location for bicycle advocacy, education, and encouragement, through hands-on experiential learning that empowers visitors to maintain their own bicycles and help others in the community.

The University Bicycle Code was updated to ensure that safe cycling behavior is enforced on all areas of campus, both on and off-streets.

With these and many other tactics, the University hopes to encourage more members of the campus community to choose bicycling as a preferred method of transportation, and in doing so help us to reach our goals to reduce transportation-related emissions.

Background

This campus is currently designated as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists. The benefits of a bicycle friendly campus are many. As a mode of transportation, bicycles provide solutions in the areas of safety, sustainability, cost savings, mobility, health and wellbeing. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was one of the first campuses in the nation to adopt a bikeway network when the first bike paths were constructed here in the 1950s. Since that time, funding cutbacks have led to degraded and disconnected pathways, outdated and insufficient bicycle parking, and limited support for bicycle services and programs. Despite these setbacks, bicycle ridership has grown at the University of Illinois in the last decade, and is expected to continue to grow in the future, creating a great need for reemphasis on engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement, and evaluation for bicycle-friendly improvements.

The primary focus of the bike plan is on infrastructure improvements to the University’s network of bikeways. Wherever possible, the plan recommends removing existing off-road side paths for bicycles and replacing them with on-street bicycle lanes or routes. These recommendations are based on the best available research on bicycle safety, which have shown significant safety improvements through on-street facilities compared to separated facilities. As ongoing research in the field continues to evaluate best practices, all future infrastructure plans and improvements on campus should continue to reflect the best available research at the time. The plan details specific recommendations for each segment of the bikeway network. The majority of infrastructure improvements included in this plan include rough cost estimates, totaling approximately $4 million in 2014 dollars. While the focus of this plan is primarily on the infrastructure improvements, Chapter 7 of the bike plan makes a number of additional recommendations on other key topics for bicycles such as improved education, encouragement, and enforcement.

Additionally, campus continues to investigate options for implementing a campuswide bike-sharing program. Small-scale departmental bike-share programs are feasible for a small cost. They allow faculty, students, and staff to travel around campus during the workday without using a car. Campus developed guidelines and best practices to make it easier for individual departments to either start their own bike-share program.

Based on survey data from 2007 and from 2011, there are increasing numbers of people on campus using bicycling as their primary mode of travel. Until 2017, there are 4000-6000 people bike around the campus every day. And our goal is to increase the number further.